I received an email today from one of my faithful readers, and they asked if I was going to write about the Anna Nicole Smith drama. To be honest, I hadn't intended to, but how can I turn down a faithful reader?
In case you don't know, Anna Nicole Smith has taken her 11 year-long battle over her husband's estate to the Supreme Court - the highest court in the land. The fight over the fortune of oil tycoon J. Howard Marshall is between his son E. Pierce Marshall and Nicole, his grieving widow. Smith met Marshall when he visited the strip club where she danced, and they soon married in 1994. The bride was 26, and the groom was 89. Minutes after the couple exchanged their wedding vows (note: the groom wore pajamas, and was wheeled down the aisle in a wheelchair) the bride left her groom and went to Mexico for a vacation.
During their 14 months of marriage, Marshall gave Smith an estimated $6.6 million in gifts that included two homes, $2.8 million in jewelry and $700,000 in clothes. Smith contends that Marshall promised her half his estate, and even signed paperwork declaring so. However, Pierce Marshall his son said that various wills and trusts his father had prepared over the yeras named him the sole heir.
In and of itself, this would have otherwise been a dreary probate dispute. But thanks to Anna Nicole Smith, it's reached a new level. Never would we have thought a case involving a former stripper and Playboy Playmate contesting the probate of a multimillionaire would have made it to the Supreme Court. The two new Supreme Court Justices are sure getting baptized by fire with this case, aren't they?
It all boils down to who's side to you believe: is Anna Nicole entitled to the fortune because she was married to the guy, or is she a just a golddigger? Before she married the old guy in 1994, nobody had ever heard of Anna Nicole Smith. But she did get the notariety because she was 26 and married an 89 year-old multimillionaire who truly had one foot in the grave and the other foot on a banana peel. Do I think she was a golddigger and married him for the money? I most certainly do. And I don't see how she can stand before the highest court in the land and say differently. Sure, the old guy might have told her "I'm making another will and will leave half of everything to you" after she opened her shirt and flashed him, like she did repeatedly to him. But I still don't think she's entitled to half of his estate - just on the sole fact that she was a golddigger. In my opinion, this marriage was way more fraudulant than Kenny Chesney and Rene Zellweiger's could have ever been. I hope she doesn't get another dime from the old guy. I side with the old guy's son on this. If I were in his place, and my 89 year-old father did something so stupid as marrying a 26 year-old, you're damn right I'd fight it all the way to the Supreme Court.
No comments:
Post a Comment